


I'm afraid I won't know where to stop

by Demonic_activity



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Alec Lightwood Loves Magnus Bane, Domestic Fluff, Domestic Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood, Established Relationship, Fluff, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, POV Alec, Short One Shot, So Married, alec needs sleep, but also his boyfriend, tiny tiny angst if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-03-14 00:45:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13582443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Demonic_activity/pseuds/Demonic_activity
Summary: Alec arrives home after an unbearably long day and wants nothing more than to cuddle with his boyfriend and spend the rest of eternity in bed with him.All the while his sleep deprived brain tries to make sense of the enormity of his feelings for Magnus.





	I'm afraid I won't know where to stop

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Lotte Kestner's amazing cover of 'I want you' (Elvis Costello).

It had been one of those days. An endless trainwreck of a day where he hadn't seemed to be able to get a grip, had constantly found himself three steps behind, and where he had never even gotten a moment to catch his breath.

It had already started early in the morning, with Jace pissed as fuck barging into his office with a dejected looking Isaac Kingsmill and Henry Wayborn in tow. The two youths had blown a mission late last night because they had been acting like “a bunch of cocky and bullheaded unprepared morons” (Jace’s words).

Alec had sighed. It was barely ten minutes into his day and he could already feel the headache coming on.

He had been calmer than Jace, but still, this had been the first time he'd had to properly assert his role as a leader of the institute and discipline two Shadowhunters under his command. Meaning he had worried about being either too hard or too easy on them.

And _then_ there had been the question of who was going to clean up the mess of the duo's botched mission, which involved an alleged Kappa demon in the New York Aquarium.

Thanks to Alec’s meticulous planning everyone else on duty had been assigned tasks that day and even the few Shadowhunters on call were already otherwise employed. He could’ve asked Izzy, knowing she wouldn’t have minded an extra assignment, but she had been off investigating the suspicious death of a vampire in Lower Manhattan and as their only forensic expert she couldn’t be spared.

Alec had sighed again and Jace had smirked, well aware of Alec's lack of options and a little too excited about the only visible solution at hand. So Alec had had to put everything on hold to make his way across all of Brooklyn with his parabatai, all the way down to goddamn Coney Island. Because sure, there was just _nothing_ he had rather be doing today.

When they had finally made it back to the Institute it had been nearing 5pm and there was a pile of paperwork the size of Brocelind Forest awaiting him on his desk. And if that all wasn’t morale-killing enough there just _had_ to be an issue with a defective sensor map that had needed fixing that night, demanding his attention and setting him back on his schedule, _again._

 

So here he sits now, elbow deep in administration due to the Clave's red tape bureaucratic bullshit, and absolutely beat.

By the time Alec is about ready to call it a night (only halfway through the pile of paperwork) it seems more sensible to just crash here at his room at the Institute.

Sensible. That used to be one of his most valued guiding principles…

The thought of crawling into his cold, dusty, uncomfortable, _Magnus-less_ bed is so utterly unappealing Alec actually consideres just pulling an all-nighter, but then the letters on the incident report he is currently reviewing start dancing and moving around on the page and he knows that isn’t very sensible either.

Neither is making the long trek to a certain loft in Brooklyn, but is just so happens to be the place he’s started to associate with the idea of _home_ in the privacy of his own thoughts. And before he can overthink it, he finds himself hitting the pavement, heading downtown.

By the time he’s dragging his feet over the doorstep of the loft, it's already the early hours of the morning and Alec is beyond exhausted. With routinely re-applied stamina runes long burned out, limbs aching like a man thrice his age, and head throbbing uncomfortably, he heads straight for the bedroom.

He just manages to shuck his jacket and peel off his shoes and trousers before crawling into bed without further ado, using the very last bit of energy he has left.

His eyes are already drooping by the time his head hits the pillow, but the recently applied night-vision rune is still activated and so he can see his beautiful boyfriend in near-perfect definition in the dark bedroom. Alec breathes in deeply, searching and discerning that heavenly and familiar smell that is all - and only - Magnus.

For the trillionth time that night, he sighs, but this time it’s in a strange sense of relief. Not necessarily from the exhaustion and muscle ache, but from something deeper, a constant sense of vigilance and responsibility, and buried even below that: a fear of failing in those regards. But here, with him, it’s like in their little bubble all of _that_ doesn’t matter. Even just for a moment, it takes a back seat, and he can just… be, and that’s enough.

Alec shuffles closer to his sleeping boyfriend, careful not to jostle and wake him, but he simply _needs_ that bit of intimacy to ground him, to ascertain…something. Or maybe just to relax him enough to fall asleep. It’s kind of embarrassing in a way. He’s a grown man, not to mention he went twenty-three years of his life sleeping alone. But in the muffling cover of the dark night, in the quiet solitude of Magnus’ home (their home?), he can admit to himself that he needs this.

He carefully stretches his arm over Magnus’ chest, grazing his thumb over the other man’s collarbone, softly brushing along the strong lines of his neck, and then down to his stomach, where he gingerly rubs circles just shy of his where bellybutton would be – and he has to fight the urge to give a gentle squeeze, his hands itching to properly touch his lover.

Magnus nevertheless reacts to the contact. Though not quite awake, he mumbles something unintelligible and snuggles even closer. Magnus’ hand finds its way to Alec’s thigh, just resting there as the man sinks back into a deeper slumber, and Alec has to suppress a pleased hum. He loves the feel of Magnus’ hands, they’re strong, yet graceful and hold immeasurable power in their palms, capable of magical things (in more ways than one).

Completely content with this simple point of contact, Alec starts to slowly drift off, but his thoughts keep circling back to the man lying next to him. He can't help it, just being together like this sometimes triggers this feeling of incredulity. This awe and near disbelief that someone could want him like that. Not just physically, but the emotional intimacy of it all, the togetherness – about which he more often than not still feels completely out of his debt.

And even after all these months, whenever he is near Magnus there appears to be this hole in his heart. One that can’t be filled, but instead just rips open even further every time. A hunger that can’t be stilled, but just grows and grows, like a need – a completely desperate need – for all and everything that Magnus has to offer.

A constant craving to be as close to Magnus as the situation will allow, sometimes subconcsious or easy to surpress, but nevertheless always present.

He didn’t know what he had expected it would be like, to love someone so much. But there is no way he could have envisioned it like this. Not in his wildest dreams (and those were pretty tame, in retrospect).

How could he have imagined the almost desperate edge to it, at its worst feeling like a jagged piece of glass in his chest, piercing with every breath he takes.

It feels like standing next to a drop-off, a vast and yawning rift. Everything is fine, until you look straight down and realize its depth.

That’s what it felt like loving Magnus. Most of the time, Alec can’t think about it too much, can’t focus on the full extent of his feelings, this seemingly bottomless well of complete affection and adoration. Because the simple magnitude and depth of it will become so overwhelming that a complete sense of panic almost threatens to overtake him if he tries to comprehend it.

It’s almost too much.

What if Magnus stops loving him, what if he stops loving Magnus, what if he loses him? _whatifwhatifwhatif_. Oh each of the endless ifs seem like they would consume him whole, devastate him. It’s pretty terrifying that so much of his happiness now depends on this one man sleeping beside him: this individual with a life and will of his own, not connected to him by blood or bound to him by anything else than this chasm, the bottomless well that they’re both staring into, are drawn to, unescapably.

So he tries not to think about it too much. And that’s okay, because most of the time they can simply _be_. Just be – in their own here, in their own now. And he knows that more than anything, Magnus brings him a sense of peace. Even if he were to slip through Alec's grasp, he imagines it would feel like the softest silk: so pleasant a sensation he wouldn't even be able to fault him that.

It's all he can do to worship with open palms.

Magnus shifts slightly beside him and mumbles drowsily. “Alexander.”

Something tightens in his chest and complete, almost childlike, elation runs through his veins, the long tiresome day already a distant memory as the grounds shift again - as they constantly do when he’s with Magnus - and the chasm expands even further, dragging him down.

In his last conscious moment before sleep pulls him under Alec thinks to himself that it’s probably okay to be scared, it just means that it’s worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi y'all!! ♡  
> This was nagging to get out and it's sort of close to my heart. Not sure if this is exactly how I imagined it to turn out.  
> Probably because in an ironic twist I myself am rather dead on my feet, lol! I seem to have a new (crazy unhealthy) routine where I stay up until 4 on Sundays to write one shots that otherwise refuse to leave my head?  
> And then my alarm goes off at 6? because I hate myself??
> 
> As always I would be delighted to hear your thoughts! Because that stuff is like the crack that fuels my sleep-deprived existence :)  
> xoxoxoxo
> 
> (you can find me as @demonic-activity on [Tumblr](https://demonic-activity.tumblr.com/) )


End file.
